The Interfaith Dialog Bubble

October 3, 2010The years following 2001 have witnessed a robust growth of the Interfaith Dialog industry. Centers and non-profits have started up all over the country, conferences have been organized, awards and honoraria have been handed out, university professors have given talks and produced books and other publications, countless individuals have participated in dialog and interfaith events, and support has been provided by public and private universities as well as the US government.

While a number of groups have sought to cash in on the opportunities in this growth sector, none have pursued them so aggressively and successfully as the Gulen Movement. In the past decade, an astonishingly large number of mayors, state legislators, journalists, authors, religious leaders, university professors and students have been invited on free or heavily subsidized “interfaith dialog” trips to Turkey. The targeting of these particular professions is no accident. The sponsors of all these trips have been Gulenist institutions, located in either the US and Turkey. Numerous individuals, including not only influential community leaders but also law enforcement officers, have accepted invitations to dialog dinners and swallowed up their Noah’s pudding at interfaith events sponsored by Gulenist organizations all across the US. During the growth of this bubble here in the United States, there has been a near absence of critical analysis of the assumption that interfaith dialog is a sound investment for our future. More disturbingly, journalists, writers, public officials and university academicians have accepted the Gulenists' intentions at face value, with virtually none of them willing to question whether the true agenda of the Gulen Movement lies elsewhere than in a desire to promote peace, tolerance and understanding. The one commendable exception has been Joshua Hendrick's PhD thesis (University of California, Santa Cruz, 2009), a highly illuminating exposition of the economic goals of the Gulenists that introduced the concept of “marketized Islam.”It remains unclear when the long-awaited “market correction” will occur, but Dr. Jill Carroll, who in the past has served as one of the Gulen Movement’s strongest advocates, recently provided a reality check with a blog post questioning the effectiveness of interfaith dialog. Her move, however surprising it may be given that she is the author of “A Dialogue of Civilizations,” is an encouraging step forward towards injecting a pragmatic discussion of price-to-earnings ratios into what to date has been an industry based on starry-eyed, overly-optimistic projections.When reading or watching the accounts of Gulenist "interfaith" Turkey trips that are found in abundance on the web, the words “irrational exuberance” come to mind. These uncritical, gushing accounts keep rolling off the assembly line, not one of them deviating significantly from the script. There is always the marveling at the hosts’ generosity and gifts. The hosts are lauded for the tolerant and moderate outlook they projected, the fact that they never once tried to convert their guests, and their expression of a strong stand against terrorism. Mention is repeatedly made of the impressively advanced state of the Turkish educational system (based on a carefully choreographed visit to one or two of the best Gulen schools). Many post-Turkey trip travelogues enthusiastically promote Turkey as a “model” for the rest of the Muslim world, a proposition generally arrived at without visiting any other Muslim country, after only a single organized tour of Turkey in which the visitors were intentionally isolated from large sectors of Turkish society, and during which they had no opportunity to become informed about Turkey’s systemic problems of corruption, authoritarianism, human rights violations, and repression of minorities such as the Kurds. Occasionally a few “Turkey trippers” may express a hint of doubt when recounting the Gulenist women’s assertions that it is entirely by their own choice and desire that they are socially separated from the men and wear more restrictive clothing, but any such mildly critical observation is immediately followed by more glowing praise. Despite the scores of already existing Turkey trip expositions, each additional account presents the observations as remarkable and novel discoveries. Numerous travelers report experiencing a revelatory moment of realization that human belief systems are all essentially the same (even though, arguably, they are not). The near-perfect match between the impressions made by the Gulenist hosts and the American fantasy of the ideal “moderate” Muslim is never noted as perhaps being something more than pure coincidence. What is glaringly absent in every one of these accounts is an acknowledgment of their quid-pro-quo nature. The trips are designed to put intense psychological pressure on the participants to say only nice platitudes when they return. What human being is capable of critically analyzing the motives of a Gulenist family that invited them, as strangers, into their home for tea, hosted them with gracious charm, and spoke to them of their great desire for increased tolerance, peace and cross-cultural understanding? Who could possibly muster the strength to look their smiling, affable and unfailingly polite tour guide in the eye, after he had tirelessly run around for days and shared with them most of their nine-day-long odyssey, and say “I feel pressured to praise Gulen and his followers, and it makes me uncomfortable.”A full-page ad in a newspaper, a billboard or a TV commercial can cost from thousands to millions of dollars. In return, one is lucky to get a few minutes attention. More importantly, influential community leaders are unlikely or unable to consent to appearing in an advertisement even if offered compensation. Yet these same individuals will willingly accept an invitation to a trip that is purported to promote the lofty goals of peace and understanding. The true cost of a one-week Gulenist tour of Turkey for one person is likely at least $3000. If that person then produces a book, newspaper article, blog post, or youtube interview that favorably mentions Fethullah Gulen or the Gulen Movement, it can reach thousands of people repeatedly for years to come, making $3000 a bargain price. William Martin of the Baker Institute at Rice University wrote in his testimonial on the "Alumni of Turkey Trips" website "I think everyone in the group was greatly impressed with what they saw and will spread good things about the Gulen movement." True to his word, he went on to produce an extremely flattering Texas Monthly feature about the Harmony Science Academy chain of Gulen charter schools in Texas. The return rate can be even higher with politicians who become favorably inclined to support Gulenist projects.In other words, there is no such thing as a free Turkey trip. Turkey trips invariably include visits to sites of Gulenist significance: a showcase Gulen school such as Fatih, Yamanlar or Coskun College, or Fatih University, or one of the numerous K-12 Gulen schools or FEM tutoring centers in Turkey, or one of their hospitals, or the offices of the Gulen media outlets Zaman or Samonyolu. These sites are carefully chosen, and the people encountered at them are not random. A Gulen school elicited the following effusive praise from one participant:“As important as the curriculum, much of which is state-mandated, is the integrity of the teachers and administrators, each of whom stands as a moral and intellectual character example to the students.”and she went on to say“As with all the institutions we visited, from the private Sifa Hospital in Izmir, to Samanyolu Television and Fatih University in Istanbul, the staff is dedicated to the point of self-sacrifice.”We already noted that Gulenists promote Turkish exceptionalism, but what is harder to understand is why Americans get caught up in it so easily. Is it a feeling of obligation that comes after receiving a low- or zero-cost overseas tour? Is it a desire to prove how open-minded and progressive they are? Is it naive idealism? Is it overcompensation for their past prejudices? Is it guilt? Another Turkey trip invitee, after visiting an elite private Gulen school, wrote:“We learned today why other countries are eating our lunch when it comes to education.”

(This, despite the fact that the highly reputable international TIMSS study results show Turkish eighth-graders performing significantly worse than U.S. eighth-graders in math.) The popular Gulenist talking point that their schools provide a better moral education is reflected in these lines of another participant: “Our visits to schools, so called “Gulen schools”, brought us into contact with teachers and administrators who have been exceptionally successful in bringing out the best in their next generation. By providing models of well-educated, caring, principled, dynamic adults, their students came across as loved and cared for; they were happy, insatiable for knowledge and gregarious individuals.”Another favored propaganda point, that Gulen schools act as a force to counteract radicalism, made it into this invitee’s account: “Especially important in the largely Muslim countries of the former Soviet Union, Gulen’s school provide hope, the strongest an [sic] antidote to the toxic messengers of jihad.”In fact, the Gulen Movement has moved into these Central Asian countries for the express purpose of revitalizing Islam in republics in which religion had been greatly weakened under 70 years of Soviet rule. Ironically, the government of Uzbekistan closed down all the Gulen schools out of fear that they would contribute to increasing religiosity and thereby animate radical elements of Uzbek society. But few Americans have the time to fact-check the ideas that are planted in their heads by their Gulenist tour guides.The following traveler's quote is also worth considering as evidence that "Turkey trips" are more about marketing the Gulen Movement (and Turkey itself) to Americans than about leading visitors to a true understanding of Turkish society:

"And what better place to explore the essential commonality of humanity than here: fertile ground for early Christianity, a refuge to persecuted Jews and home to a modern, moderate Islam?"

While many Americans might think that Turkish people would be happy to read these words, Jonathan Crince noted in his thesis (American University, 2009) that the term "moderate Islam" is actually perceived by Turks as insulting. He refers to an April 2009 article in the Turkish national newspaper Hurriyet: "According to Erdogan, 'it is unacceptable for us to agree with such a definition [Turkey as the representative of moderate Islam]. Turkey has never been a country to represent such a concept. Moreover, Islam cannot be classified as moderate or not.' " This is particularly noteworthy since Gulenists are Prime Minister Erdogan's staunch supporters. Yet Gulenists are quite content to play along with the "moderate Muslim" role (when facing the west) as long as it helps smooth the way for them to pursue their economic and political interests in the United States. Indeed, recognizing that Americans are urgently seeking "moderate Islam," they aggressively seek to sell themselves as fitting the bill perfectly; this fits in with their overall strategy of trying to recruit the U.S. to help them position themselves as leaders of the Muslim world.

The Gulen Movement’s unparalleled brainwashing techniques are nowhere more evident than in these videos here and here of University of Oklahoma students after they had been Turkey tripped. Gulen tells us our society is overly materialistic and in need of a spiritual renewal that he can offer; his followers view themselves as the “Golden Generation,” well-educated and highly moral. Yet they include among their ranks such individuals as Sezgin Ayaz, onetime co-owner of a used car business in New Jersey. Ayaz also served on the board of the Burlington American Turkish Organization, which operated a private Gulen school, the Pioneer Academy of Science South Jersey in Cherry Hill NJ. In 2008, this school successfully applied for 3 separate H-1B visas to bring “ethics teachers” to the US with a salary of $48,000 (well above the OES-determined prevailing wage of $41,930). Yet Sezgin Ayaz’s business, Magic Motors, was reviled by scores of customers as fraudulent and run by scam artists. Following on a flood of complaints of theft and fraud, the state Division of Taxation seized the business property, the Motor Vehicle Commission seized the business license, and Magic Motors was finally shut down by the state of New Jersey. The Pioneer school recently closed down as well. Such examples serve as a reminder that the Gulenists are only too human.

It is too early to know whether Jill Carroll’s blog post is a sign that the Interfaith Dialog bubble is about to burst. In the post-bubble phase, interfaith dialog may continue to be pursued by a small number of individuals for sincere purposes, which, as Carroll has rightly noted, does no harm, yet is likely to lead to modest results at best. What is certain, though, is that the prominent role of the Gulen Movement in this arena will soon be recognized for what it truly is: one of the most ingenious window-dressings ever devised for the crass pursuit of money and power.